Lonely Flapper
(watercolor illustration on paper, 2007)
"We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone."
Orson Welles
"The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved."
Mother Teresa
"Language... has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone."
Paul Tillich
"Remember we're all in this alone."
Lily Tomlin
"Little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Francis Bacon
I painted the Lonely Flapper after I did the unthinkable - while visiting a friend in New York I had lunch by myself. I know that people do it all the time, but it was a first for me. I bought a magazine, walked in (quite bravely) into a restaurant and asked for a table for one. It turned out that eating in a restaurant by yourself is not that much different than eating by yourself at home. Even better, since you don't have to do the dishes afterwards.
Anyway, after my trip I came home and came up with a concept for an illustration depicting a lonely woman in a restaurant. Of course, unlike me I ended up portraying her as feeling truly lonely. Surrounded by chatty happy couples I made her think about her last boyfriend and I decided that she needs to realize what fool she was to let him go. I think she'll go to see him as soon as she finishes her afternoon tea. He'll forgive her, they'll eventually get married and live happily ever after for the next fifty years.
